Help and Guidance

[onefurlongout]

First post on here so please go easy one me!

Ive been following horse racing for the past few years and whilst I’m not a gambler I do like a little flutter now and again. I dont really bet to make a lot of money and if I can finish up a bit then Im well happy.

I mainly use the online Racing post for my racecrads/form etc..

When choosing horses I like to fill out my own rating tracker printed out from excel, from this I obtain a short list and bet one of the shortlist. I usually back the highest rated but the trouble is I regularly get a few horses with the same rating and Im looking for help/guidance on something to add to my tracker so that I get a different rating for each horse.

My selection categories are as follows with the outcome yes/no or won placed or neither and alotted points for each outcome

Won class? W=3 Placed = 2 Neither = 0
Won Course? W=3 P=2 N=0 Won similar=2 placed similar =1
Won distance W=3 P=1 N=0
Recent form (within 1/2 length per furlong for last 2 races)
Speed (based on 75% of the highest topseped as per racing post)
Going? W=3 P=1 N=0
Good Draw Yes = 1 No =0
Good fitness (ran within last 50 days) Y=1 N=0
Headgear Y=0 N=1
Jockey over 10% at course Y=1 N=0
Trainer over 10% at course Y=1 N=0

Sometimes I base the jockey/trianer stat on the age of the horse and not the overall course stat eg 2yo 3yo and 4yo+

Once all of the points are added up you multiply by 5 to get the overall score. Maximum is 100. Usually anything over 70 should be considered but its at this point I let myself down. I think I’m just missing a few vital ingredients.

Any advice or guidance is more than welcome or just comment on whether the process that I use is to time consuming or could be done in a more simple fashion

Thanks in anticipation

[sporting sam]

Hi there and welcome to the Forum OFO.
An interesting aproach, first thing that struck me was "thats a lot of catorgories!" But everyone has their own way.
Do you restrict your self to any type of races? Claimers sellers handicaps
stakes all weather, distances etc,
there are lots of Forumites who use systems and they are better qualified and a lot more methodical than me and can give you loads of advice.
The systems area is very quiet these days but there are plenty of folk lurking around who will help you.
Enjoy.

[onefurlongout]

I agree with it being a bit OTT on the categories hence the post.

I tend to use it in every race except the all weather again open to suggestions as to the best races to use.

Thanks for the post and I hope to get a few more ideas from the knowledgable crowd

[cormack15]

Welcome OFO.

Interesting post. How about perhaps scoring a race at the weekend and posting it up for discussion?

[dave jay]

Hi Onefurlongout .. if you compile any rating or scoring system to pick horses you have to have a grasp on why you are allocating points for various factors, in my opinion.

As you are awarding points on a more or less abritrary basis .. won at course 3 / distance winner 3 .. you have to ask is it more important that a horse has won at todays distance than if it has won at this course ? And make your judgement from there.

A change I would make right away if you wanted to keep the same scoring structure would be ..
Fitness: 3 points for run in last 9 day / 2 pts for 10 to 30 / 1pt 31 to 50 / 0 for longer than that.

Drop the jockey score because you will eliminate apprentice jockeys and some of these are very useful on the best horses.

Good luck with this whatever you do and welcome to the forum.

[onefurlongout]

Thanks for the quick responses guys. I will post an outcome for a race on friday/saturday one using my exisiting system and one using the advice from Dave.

In response to your Q dave I do allocate on an arbitary basis. My thoughts on course are that each course has its own charactersitics. Right hand, LH, galloping, tight etc and having formulated a table for each course in the UK I base my points this table. With regards to distance I feel this is an area that could let me down as I take no consideration in to the assciated going as thistaken into account separately. Perhaps i should combine these two factors.

I do however feel that the jockey is important and I take on your point about apprentice jockeys, should I therefore consider horse/jockey partnerships or just drop the jockey thing all together?

[Artemis]

Hi onefurlongout,

I’m pretty sure that your method is something that will evolve over a long period of time as your experience grows. Eventually, you should find something you are comfortable with, but even then, you will probably make minor adjustments.

There are good arguments for and against many of the factors you mention.The main argument against most of the obvious highly rated factors is that the betting market already discounts them, so they tend to be overbet.

I’ve already written at length on this subject on two threads, the most recent being RP ratings Revisited(last post June 25th). There is an earlier thread on using the RP to compile ratings, but I had to delete some parts of it. Both are probably worth a browse – if you have the time!

I’m afraid that using this approach is highly unlikely to lead directly to a profitable outcome, but it is a useful learning curve.

Who knows…. somewhere along the road, you may turn along a byway that I didn’t and discover something that others haven’t. I’m sure there is no ‘holy grail’ or secret formula waiting to be discovered, just knowledge about why horses win and lose, and eventually a realisation that a race is so chaotic in terms of the endless possibilities of how different factors can combined, that it can defy rational and logical thought.

But, we keep trying.

[dave jay]

Regarding the jockeys .. I never consider the jockey because of the reason that I have given, booking a top class jockey is almost always a bad thing from a punting point of view because everyone knows who the good jockeys are and therefore a realistic price is harder to get.

As for all of the rest of the rating system .. I have a little red book somewhere that has a very similar method in it and I can’t remember the name of it, or who it was written by. You will get your share of winners using this but you won’t make a profit over time because the rating has no meaning because the points allocation is arbitary.

Have you read the rating system written up on here by Artemis ??

[onefurlongout]

Not had chance to properly digest the site yet but I plan on reading the RP rating and Artemis article.

inital thoughts are that I need to radically overhaul my thought process in order to make a better profit. Perhaps by reading the above posts I’ll be in more of a informed decision.

Either way it looks like a bit of a long road to follow

[dave jay]

It is a long road, but it can be cut considerably shorter by talking to people on forums, reading books and tackling the whole subject as a learning process. I’ve been at the horse racing for more than 20 years and I still learn new things al the time.

[onefurlongout]

On some of the posts it talks about betting points, can I just ask what this means?

Ive had a look at the artemis article and it is interesting bit confused on some of the terminology but i think I get the jist of it all

[dave jay]

With regard to betting .. points usually means the number of points you bet from a betting bank of many points. For example you may bet 1 point, which could be 1 point of a 100 point bank, or 1% of your bank. Or 1 point of a 50 point bank, or 2%.

In handicapping a point is a lb.

In some systems a point is an arbitary figure, with no relevance to anything other than itself and the points allocated to the other horses in the race.

[onefurlongout]

Thought that was the case but just wanted to check.

Ive compiled rating for the 8.20 @ kempton (4/7)

Anything over 70 merits consideration
Horse 1 = 30
2=75
3=50
4=70
5=65
6=35
7=80
8=75
9=NR
10=65

Now I dont usually look at the all weather as I find it attracts a lower class of animal but for the purposes of the post I will try anyway. I’ll post for a better race on Fri or Sat.

Based on the above I’d consider 2,4,7 & 8 With 7 being the top rated and at a price of 16/1 seems a little on the high side.

The top two in the market are 6(f) @35pts and 10 at 65pts

Lets see how it gets on

[Artemis]

When I refer to betting points in articles, I usually mean ratings points awarded on the strength of betting odds. These ratings points can be added to your own ratings and should give a more realistic idea of what your own ratings represent in terms of odds.

Ratings are of limited use unless you can visualise or represent them in the form of odds or probabilities. I usually work(very roughly) on:

1 ratings point = 4 percentage probability points.

e.g If horse A is rated 100 and horse B is rated 97, I would expect them to be 12 percentage probability points apart in the betting. So, if A is evens(50 per cent probabilty), B should be 50 minus 12 = 38 percent, or 13 to 8.

Given a set of current odds, you can convert them into ratings points(to add to your own ratings) by using the same simple conversion factor:

4 percentage probability points = 1 ratings point
i.e evens = 50/4 = 12 ratings points.
6/4 = 40/4 = 10 ratings points… and so on.

I should emphasise that this is purely a theoretical model which can be stretched in any direction until it ‘feels’ right. It is not a hard and fast rule.
Many people would argue quite strongly that using existing odds to prepare your own set of odds is unsatisfactory, compounding errors in the original data. My own feeling is that the market has knowledge that cannot be gleaned from any other source, so should be taken into account.

[onefurlongout]

Not the best result with the winner being number 4 with 3 in 2nd 10th 3rd and 2 finishing 4th.

I’ll produce further ratings for the weekend and see if its any better

[dave jay]

Don’t give up mate you can’t expect to win on every race .. it’s hard to post losers on a forum, but it does stiffen your resolve a bit.

[Pompete]

it’s hard to post losers on a forum

I’ve no shame Dave, it comes easy to me

[Author]

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